I am at the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta with our youth pastor, Matt Malone. It is great to see the vitality of this conference is the same as when I came as a youth pastor. Mark Matlock leads the 44 year-old organization called Youth Specialties that puts this conference on, so he does a lot of thinking about youth ministry. In recent years it has become popular to bash youth ministry, criticizing its effectiveness and even its Biblical mandate to exist. Mark gives some language that helps those of us who love and believe in youth ministry explain its importance.

I have summarized his five points:

Youth ministry is necesary because . . .

1. Youth Ministry assimilates a new generation into an intergenerational community.
2. Youth Ministry helps the church stay relevant.
3. Most people become Christians before they are the age of 18.
4. Unlike most entities, teenagers can fully participate in the church as teenagers.
5. Teenagers keep the church authentic, with fresh eyes to see Jesus’ way.

In August, I slipped into a youth service at CIL, and I was touched to see dozens of our students kneeling in prayer for persecuted Christians at the front of the church.  This picture is why I love youth ministry.

You can access the Matlock’s blog post, and more of his thoughts on these five points by clicking here.

Here is Matlock’s same five points in the words he has chosen:

1. Youth ministry is vital to helping teens integrate into the larger intergenerational community of the church.
2. Youth ministry resists the status quo, helping a church stay relevant in a changing culture.
3. Youth ministry focuses on inviting those who are not already part of the church into the deeper narrative of God’s plan for humankind.
4. Youth ministry reminds the church that teens are not marginalized members of the body, but are co-creators and conspirators in the divine work of the church, restoring life on earth as it is in heaven.
5. Youth ministry helps the church focus on the way of Jesus, which goes beyond tradition, dogma, and ritual.